Tips & Tricks For At Home Product Photography

When you are trying to sell something, trying to capture it in the best way possible can be a little tricky. It may seem daunting to think you may need a lot of good equipment to do them any justice - but it couldn’t be easier to make your products look AMAZING with just a few household items.

The cameras on our phones are so good these days, there isn’t much need for big, fancy cameras that cost a fortune. If you just want to use your phone, make sure you get a good level of light to keep the quality as high as possible.

2. What Type of Light To Use 

We personally like to work with a small, pop up studio which provides a light box effect around the product. This is a good piece of equipment to have if you want to have little shadow and highlight all parts equally. However, if that doesn’t apply to you and you also think you wouldn’t like to buy one, there are alternatives!

If you are shooting indoors, you should consider setting up a small studio by a window which will provide you with direct light. It is a good idea to have the window side on to avoid any back lighting that won’t highlight the product especially well. If you need a little more light, try getting a lamp (preferably with a neutral coloured light bulb) and placing it on the other side, so you have light coming from both sides.

Equally, another popular approach to gaining good light for your product photography is natural, outdoors light. This is a great and easy set up to get some interest shadows.

3. How To Set Up A Mini Studio

It’s all well and good having the right light source, but what about your studio set up? This is where you can get really creative and should have a brand identity put together. Try finding some inspiration from Pinterest before you start to give you some ideas on what you would like your theme to be. For example, when we put together our Instagram feed (@big.little.store.beads), we like to create a consistent theme of bold, block background colours and occasional props. We see this as a good way to express the fun and vibrant colours of our beads without taking away from the product itself.

It is important to try a few different styles. It can feel a little overwhelming a first thinking of a brand theme in your photography, but you will soon learn what works and what people like to see.

TIP: When posting to third party sites, such as Ebay and Amazon, use a pure white backdrop set up and remember to read through their requirements for photography when posting products.

4. Editing

Don’t forget the final step - editing! We use mostly Lightroom to make our photos really pop and adjust the light accordingly. Especially when taking photos on a phone, the lighting and colours may not do the product justice. Use some editing to tweak these aspects, but try to be cautious with this. You want your photos to be true to the product and the aim is to make them look the best they can.

Along with Lightroom, we LOVE Canva. This is a great tool, especially to make your social media content look great. Whether it is Instagram stories, Facebook Ads or New Logos, this editing site is really easy (and fun!) to use and can turn just a plain photo into something really special. They do a free version which is great and offers a lot of versatility.